Village Board Offers Site For A Bigger Post Office

January 25, 1999|By Laurie Grano.

GURNEE — Plagued by residents' complaints about the town's tiny post office, the Gurnee Village Board has made an offer it hopes U.S. Postal officials will not refuse.

The Village Board is proposing to sell about half of a 10.5-acre parcel on the northwest corner of North O'Plaine Road and Washington Street for a new, bigger post office, officials said last week. The site is across the street from the current facility.

The $2.3 million tract was purchased by the village earlier this month with a new police station in mind--a project still years away--and village officials say there is plenty of room for a post office too.

The village would sell the land for the same price it paid, officials said. Efforts to reach postal officials, who have been sent the village's proposal, have been unsuccessful.

Complaints about the cramped conditions and lack of parking at the current site are common, Mayor Richard Welton said.

"The village opposed (the plans for the current post office) 20 years ago, before it was built," Welton said. "We felt it was obsolete from Day 1."